Wednesday, December 15, 2004

I Miss Republicans.

No, seriously. Remember Republicans? Sober men in suits, pipes, who'd nod thoughtfully over their latest tract on market-driven fiscal conservatism while grinding out the numbers on rocket science. Remember those serious-looking 1950's-1960's science guys in the movies -- Republican to a one.

They were the grown-ups. They were the realists. Sure they were a bummer, maaaaan, but on the way to La Revolution you need somebody to remember where you parked the car. I was never one (nor a Democrat, really, more an agnostic libertarian big on the social contract, but we don't have a party ...), but I genuinely liked them.

How did they become the party of fairy dust and make believe? How did they become the anti-science guys? The anti-fact guys? The anti-logic guys?

I'm not talking McCain, Hagel, Snowe, or Lugar, here, the cool hard-ass Republicans who still operate in the real world. I'm talking specifically about the guys running the party right now.

Stem cell research? Agin' it.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ..."-- Why not?
Biggest Surplus to biggest debt, even not counting the war? More tax cuts!
Post-war planning in one of the most divisive Arab communities in the world? Don't need it.
Global warming? No, no it's not.
No WMD's? So what? ... "So what?" SO WHAT?
Conservation? Bigger tax breaks for Hummers than hybrids.
Soldiers need more armor! No, no they don't. Nonny-nonny-nonny ...

Seriously, if I were writing these guys in a script, you'd mock me for stereotyping. And rightfully so. I know, I usually don't get overtly political here. But this is what set me off (via kos):

(EDIT: Please see this excellent Defense Tech article for the snark-free coverage of this test and its significance. Be sure to follow the link to Jeffrey's excellent article on Arms Control Wonk)

This test, by the way, was cancelled a few days ago because of rain. Because. Of. Rain. And please note that the previous few successes were because the target missle had homing beacons in them, tuned to the exact frequency of the intercepting rockets. Now, you may mock this, but even now, we are negotiating with Iran and North Korea to have all their missiles emit this radio frequency. So joke's on you.

This is what we get for about $100 billion up to now, with about another $100 billion more spent in the next 5 years ... for these test results.

You understand, I'm not against defense spending. I'm not going to rant about how many school lunches this could buy. I'm ranting about junk science.

$100 billion dollars against an attack mode which is literally the most inconvenient, least likely way for bad guys to kill Yanks. Terrorists don't have missiles. Terrorists have VANS. A white-panel-truck defense shield, THAT would be worth our money. Tie the INS database into the Ryder rental computer. Now we're talking science.

At $200 billion we could literally give every person in the Middle East a thousand bucks to look the other way, maybe buy some Nike knock-offs and chill*. If we Fermi Problem it, figuring on just men, 50% down, then just adult men between , say 17-40, knock it down a quarter, then assume fairly effective terrorists need a smattering of English and some technical knowledge, that's down to maybe 10% of our working number ... that's between $50,000 to $80,000 to every reasonably viable terrorist to go out and not vaporize himself. That's good money. That's "let's focus more on the inventing-algebra parts of Islam and slightly less on the jihad aspects while we watch the game on my new big-screen" money. Sure, you're gonna get your martyrs, but hey, that's what the Dept. of Homeland Security is for.

Yes, that suggestion is crazy. It also has EXACTLY THE SAME REAL-WORLD SUCCESS RATIO OF THE MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM.

I love how in these articles, the system is always quoted as designed to protect us " ... from rogue states such as North Korea ...". No. No, there are no rogue states "such as" North Korea. It's North Korea, guys. That's it. The only fighter in this weight class. China? They're our biggest foreign asset holder, please. Iran? Jerusalem should worry. The US, not so much . Russian loose nukes? More likely to be broken down for parts for a Van-Based Delivery System (TM) than not -- and year's worth of what we spend on missile defense would be a %2000 increase on what we spend on locking down loose nuclear materials now.

What, are the Phillipines suddenly gonna get all cranked up on non-drowsy cough medicine and decide to go postal on us with their shoddily-made fusion-bomb dancing dashboard figurines? No, when we say " ... rogue states such as North Korea", we mean North Korea. And that means Kim Jong-il. One guy. Simple, fifth-grade logic inexorably draws us to the conclusion that we are spending $200 billion dollars to protect ourselves from one guy.

I'll even SPOT you the argument that we should spend $200 billion on protecting ourselves from one guy. He is, after all, nuts. Probably not so nuts that he'd tip off his super-secret invasion of the southern half of his peninsula by nuking and therefore SUPREMELY pissing off the world's only remaining superpower before he got the tanks rolling, but fine. Nuts. Are you telling me there's no better way to spend $200 billion to stop one guy? What'd it cost the mob to whack Kennedy? $50,000 plus hotel? Even with cost-of-living increase, we can get a better deal here.

If there were a rash of break-ins ... no scratch that. Say there's a violent murder in your neighborhood. A really brutal slayfest. Blood on the walls, body parts on the lawn.

Your neigbor decides to take precautions. He leaves his doors and windows unlocked. He sits on the roof, armed with a SpongeBob SquarePants air-rifle, just in case the killers return and attack the house by hang-glider this time. And the air rifle doesn't work. And he spent EVERY DIME HE HAD on the air rifle.

You would of course, say your neighbor was insane. Or supremely stupid.

You do the rest.

My original point was -- Republicans used to be the guys who put the brakes on this shit. A sad chuckle, a little head shake. "Who's going to pay for this?" they'd say, frowning over national budgets. "Where are the facts? The research?" They'd take out their little red pens and buzzkill our little dreams of nationalized health care or solar-powered windmills or maglev trains, and then go back to banning pornography while secretly screwing around on their wives. But you know what? A lot of times, they were right.

We needed those guys. They were a dull but crucial part of the national dialogue. (And they knew their scotches. ) Now ... a void. Simply put, if you are voting for these guys who call themselves Republicans, then you are voting for crazy air-rifle guy. You just walked up, nodded, and said: "Wow, I gotta get me a ladder."

Please. Please. Bring back the real Republicans. Bring back the science guys. I miss you.

(*Yes, I'm aware not all terrorists are Middle Eastern. But let's face it, the United States' defense policy isn't driven by its fear of Irish thugs and Basque with a grudge. Go with me here.)

416 comments:

I have been saying for a while now that these so called Republicans have hijacked the concepts of Patriotism, Morality and now Conservatism itself.

What's left for anyone else?

We should call it the "what's left?" wing! Or the Leftovers wing.

Hopefully this will all start to swing the other way when neither party can find a candidate willing to stand up there on TV and tell the American People that (s)he believes the world is 8k years old! Or I could be shocked again. I mean I never imagined we would put in command of nuclear (newk-yew-ler) weapons someone who can't even pronounce them! But guess what?

I just like the fact that we went to war in Iraq because our leader's invisible friend told him to do it. You know, the guy he had conversations with prior to committing hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers to an unwinnable war.

I tell ya, where can I get me whatever drugs he's takin'?

Anyway...what was this post about?

Ah yes, Republicans.

I, too, miss the good old days. Although, I was born in '78, so my earliest memories of a Republican is that whole Iran-Contra thing. But I understand where you're comin' from, John.

Hell, I just miss the days when the worst thing the president did was get a blowjob in the Oval Office. Instead, we're stuck with a schmuck who lied to his entire country, and when his lie was found out, he just kinda shrugged his shoulders and said "yeah, so?"

Thank you. That's all I've been saying for years now. When did Republican stop meaning "Smaller government, less taxes" (ok, that would be Reagan, but you know what I mean) and start meaning "Blow everybody up and tell you all how to run your lives"It's very irratating.

The problem is that I hear far too few traditional Republicans (which I will use as shorthand to refer to the Republicans of yore you describe) echoing the same sentiment. I'm not sure why it seems to be only people on the Left screaming bloody murder about how the Republican Party has been hijacked by total fuckwits.

I was disgusted by some traditional Republicans I know who held their nose and voted for Bush, simply because they wouldn't vote for a Democrat. No matter how much you pointed out to them that - as bizarre as it may have seemed - the party of fiscal responsibility, smaller government, states' rights, and conservation (particularly environmental) was, this time, the Democrats, they still cast a vote for Commander Codpiece.

Their party is slipping (has permanently slipped?) away from them, but they say nothing, do nothing. When America has fallen into the inevitable morass that is its destination with Bush at our helm, I won't blame the Democrats, for they did everything they could on behalf of Kerry, and I won't even blame the right wingnuts, who at least voted as they believed, foolish as it is. I will blame the large swath of traditional Republicans who refused to acknowledge that their party had left them, and made no noise about its failed leadership, choosing instead to keep handing new strings to Nero for his fiddle.

I hear the Iranians are also promising to monitor the Weather Channel in order to nuke us only on clear days. Can anyone say "Stealth Bomber". That's damn pesky Mother Nature, she needs to be brought down.

But I think your analogy of the guy on the roof is missing a step. The guy on the roof is not the home owner and he's not insane. The guy on the roof is Sylvester McMonkey McBean (from the Sneetches). He was a security guard who was asleep in his car when the awful murder went down. After the murder, he saw his chance and went to your neighbour and said "I can protect you." The neighbour might have been suspicious but was upset by the gore and body parts and so relied on the local paper to check out SMM's credentials. However, the local paper was also completely bamboolzed by the chimp's patter and fact that he talked like he goes to Church every Sunday (although he really doesn't). So the neighbour hires the guy to protect him. Unknown to the neighbour, however, SMM has spent all his money on the air rifle to which the manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer all provided monumental kickbacks to SSM (this and not the nominal fee he charges the neighbour himself is where the chimp makes his money).

Right behind ya, Sundance. I used to love being a democrat... but I don't know what that is anymore either.

I read once that not all conservatives are stupid people, but most stupid people are conservative. Now I think that not all liberals are pissed off... but most people I know who are pissed off... are pissed off at the new Republicans.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read "THINK! It's patriotic." So John, why don't you submit a treatment of a G. I. Joe movie to DiBonaventura? You could base it on Larry Hama's story of long-suffering soldiers at the bottom of the hill that the proverbial shit runs down. Might sound like a hopeless case, then again, it might give some 10-year-old the perspective he needs on patriotism to avoid blindly signing up for military service and getting his eyes burned out in a war that nobody understands. Just a thought.

Well done sir. My grandfather was the Republican mayor of a small Minnesota town, as red as you get, we have pics of him shaking hands with Reagan. Autographed pictures. But I can guarantee he's doing some serious grave-spinning right now with these tools in office.

You are now blogrolled on my 27-hits-per-day website, too, FWIW.Best,Vestal

Don't worry too much. The Republicans will win the 2008 prez election with Arnie but then, after he creates WW4 and its the U.S. literally fights against the entire planet, the Left Wing political movement will swoop in, with the help of the UN, to save the day. Or so it will seem.

You remember, the party of the working people, the protectors of our Bill Of Rights, the folks who kept big business from fornicating the middle class. They've become Republican Lite or Republicrats. The sold out to the K Street lobiest decades ago, that's why the Republicans took over K Street. (Any body here know about the K Street project?

And don't even call any of them Liberal. The horrible truth is, the last president who was a Liberal in any way was Nixon.

Yeah, sounds like bovine excrement to you? Well, how do you measure a Liberal administration? Ask which administration was the last to use Wage & Price controls to protect the wealth of the working and middle classes: it was Nixon's.And durring which administration was the last major Civil Rights Law introduced, passed, and signed into law by the presiden; and while you're at it, ask 'bout the last time major Environment legistlation was too: both under Nixon.

Yeah, I know, I know better than most: Nixon was one sick SOB; and he degrade our Government like no one else till now. But hey, did more for the middle class, workers, and poor, minorities and the environment than Carter and Clinton combined.

John, you are a funny man and a good writer. Had me, a no-kiddin' Christian Fundamentalist Republican ex-Infantry Officer, laughing. My botton line here is really going to tick you off, so you can skip to the last sentence if you want.

You found a few kinks in the Republican armor, which is the funny part. But your rant about the missile defense...well, you are simply uninformed. Sorry. I know you are really tired of hearing this, but we know things you don't know. "We" means the government. I still work for them. Make a note on your calendar: in eight years or so come back and read again your comments about "the only one in that weight class." That's about all I can say, dude. Just be glad you live in the most technologically advanced nation on earth. Well...I guess you could live in the least developed nation on earth too. Either way you have some protection from attack by ICBMs, IRBMs, and SRBMs, not to mention cruise missiles (we're working on that last one).

The wolves are at the mouth of the cave and they want to carry away your babies.

Perhaps you missed the Bin Laden video immediately before Black Tues, er, I mean, the Election. The only reason we're targets is because of our foreign policy in the middle east (read: oil) ... steal my babies?

The wolves are in the white house, man. After Psy Ops for over a year to get the people of Iraq to put down arms "we" bombed the heck out of 'em anyway. Over 100k civilians. Now who are the wolves???

Great post!Republicans used to be the guys who put the brakes on this shit. A sad chuckle, a little head shake. "Who's going to pay for this?"...Fiscal conservatism and scientific thinking is still alive and well in the Libertarian Party. Plus, we don't ban porn!

On behalf of Irish Thugs everwhere I wish take you to task for your description of us as thugs. Say that again and I'll find where you live and steal your airgun. I might even trample a few flowers. Thugs indeed.

>I was disgusted by some >traditional Republicans I know>who held their nose and voted for>Bush, simply because they>wouldn't vote for a Democrat.

I would have been happy to vote for A Democrat. There wasn't any reason for me to vote for John Kerry. The only real plank of Kerry's platform was that he wasn't George W. Bush.

Stem Cell research? Please. There is just as much work being done in the case of NON-FETAL stem cell research, which the government is funding.

Missile defense "failures"? Oh, christ in heaven! The people solemnly declaring that it will enver work are basing their statements on ill-informed thought experiments and poorly-remembered read-throughs of Tom Clancy. People who know what the fuck they are talking about are much more confident. "But it hasn't shot down anything yet!" Well, A: yes it has, and B: very few of the tests were actually intended to shoot anything down.

I think what people forget (mainly democrats/left wing) is that USA has an incredibly skilled administration right now, just like it has had in the last couple of decades. If the government does something, it's because it's been thought through very carefully. Assuming that they're idiots will get you nowhere.

So, wait, the tests that weren't intended to shoot anything down really worked when they shot stuff down?

I don't insult your intelligence, don't insult mine. I read the trades, defense journals, and can still hack my way through hard science. I'm not saying to stop financing missile defense, I'm pointing out that some of the money can go somewhere else much, much morse useful. But don't show me that lame-ass track record, wehre the Pentagon ADMITS it's constantly lowering the bar, and get fucking snarky for me for suggesting reasonable alternatives.

Vic3: Yes, the wolves are at the door. They snuck their suitcase nuke in through our undefended ports while we were fucking around with missle defense. ATell you waht, I will come back in eight years and look at this post -- and we'll see which of our armageddons has come to pass. And even IF other countries have ICBM's, I'll bet every dime I have that missile defense STILL won't work then, and we should probalby think of a non-fairy magic way of getting rid of those nukes.

When was it exactly when these mythical "intellectually honest" republicans ruled the GOP? Certainly not in my political lifetime. I remember in 1983 having this exact same argument with the college Young Republicans on the steps of UT Austin when Ronald Reagan proposed SDI the first time.

So to Vic3, it's been 22 years already, I don't think another 8 is going to make this idiotic program look any better, but each additional year will cost us another $20 Bil. and accelerating.

I keep hearing about these "responsible Republicans" whom we miss so terribly because they used to keep the trains running on time. I can't place any of these wise men; when I think of Republicans gone by, I can't stop thinking about Nixon, McCarthy--that ilk.

Please name five of these Republicans of old whom we wish would come back and talk sense to the present breed. I can't believe they ever existed.

We could just acknowledge the new multi-party system in our country:Bush, Rove, and their ilk can head up the U. S. Christian Neo-Nazis, the Republicans who REALLY are for non-governmental intervention can shore up the Libertarian party, The old fashioned R's can stay in the Republican party, the more moderate R's and Dems can make up the Democrats, and the Dems who are pro-environment and pro-average Joe/Josey can join the Green Party.

Great job John! I'm half a century now and I've seen alot of changes but the one thing that remains the same is...not enough of us are out there voting these fools out of office! Everyone thinks thier vote won't count, so why bother. It's your biggest weapon, use it!

Bullshit. You've bought into the Leave-it-to-Beaver fiction, the Republican framing that was a lie even when it was fresh, the Americana-that-never-was, *ever.*

Sane, responsible grownups? No foreign involvement, no religious oppression? You mean the ones who were running the country when there was mandatory prayer in public schools? The Eisenhower administration which got us involved in Vietnam covertly, which overthrew using the CIA the nascent democracy in Iran, and sent troops into Guatemala? The Eisenhower Republicans, of whom Nixon was one of the foremost as VP? The days of J. Edgar Hoover's schizo blackmailing reign, and of "57 communists" McCarthy, of whom the parody in the original Manchurican Candidate was no parody at all? Of the era when to be gay was to be disqualified from public office, unless you were as closeted as Roy Cohn? When the identification of Christianity and Capitalism was made seamless and promulgated by those friends of William F. Buckley, Time magazine editor Luce and his wife the anti-feminist conservative Catholic Clare Booth, now patron saint of the Conservative Women's Association? When they didn't need to insist on prayer being put back in schools or the Ten Commandments being placed in courtrooms or mandatory [Judeo]-Christianity because they already had it? - but did anyway, because it was important to pit Godly Plutocracy against the Godless Commies? It isn't as if Sinclair Lewis didn't see it coming in 1935-- a completely American Protestant Christian Fascism--

When stark raving bonkers Curtis LeMay with his plan to start a first-strike nuclear war, and Daniel Pipes Senior, and Herman "Mineshaft Gap" Kahn of the Rand Foundation, were the grownups in charge, and Mutually Assured Destruction was the grownups' plan for us?

When "Duck & Cover" was the responsible adults' answer to the hell they were building and preparing to unleash?

When it was a responsible, grownup thing to refuse to address civil rights, and instead to blame the protestors - and shoot them in the streets? When it was a choice between dumb and dumber, Goldwater and Nixon, and California gave us not only Nixon but student-shooting Reagan, too?

We are dealing every day and every hour with the blowback that those "responsible" "grownup" Republicans bequeathed us. The 50s radicals did not come irrationally out of nowhere, no more the 60s. They were the rational, and entirely predictable to any student of 18th and 19th century history, human response to a bunch of Podsnap plutocrats pissing away the resources of the country on Forever Wars and boondoggles, proclaiming it God's Will with pious hypocrisy.

And it didn't start in the 50s, either. There's a reason that in the liberal flick Casablanca the burned-out lifelong fascist fighter Blaine can't go home to the States again - he's blacklisted as an evil leftist agitator.

National Review is, and always has been, the true heir of th '50s Conservativism. The veil is off your eyes, is all. Just like it finally - finally! - fell from former-officer Commie-bashing militant turned minister Niemoller's eyes - but only after they came for him. Now it's your ox finally being gored, and you think it's the first time happening to anyone - welcome to what life was like for the marginalized all along.

My father was the type of rational, libertarian "old school" Republicans you speak of. Fiscally conservative but tolerant and pro-science. My sister had an openly gay male friend which she brought over to my house sometime. And he had no problem with him at all.

He loved jazz, even watched MTV with me and my sister. He went to church but was hardly a jealet. Most conservatives like him have either become members of the Libertarian party, registered independent or blue dog democrats like Jim Webb of Virginia or Casey of Pennsylvania.In his dying days, Barry Goldwater lamented on the Christian Right takeover of the GOP.

I'm 43 so I'm old enough to have seen first-hand the transmogrification of the GOP from those nerdy buttoned-down number-crunchers to the wild-eyed New Right anti-Enlightenment wackjobs we have today.

How did it happen?

Well that's a short story when you get right down to it. They were so desperate for power - remember, these guys spent most of 40some years without a majority in Congress, with only occasional stays in the White House to get them by - that they made a deal with a couple of devils.

Specifically, the bible-thumping fundamentalists and the racist South.

The saying goes, 'when you dance with the devil, the devil don't change; he changes you.' Or, as some other wise men named TMBG said, 'you can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.'

Pretty soon, the GOP, drunk on power, absolutely certain it was right about everything, and increasingly beholden to a mob of bloodthirsty, racist, ignorant hicks, became today's modern Bush-led GOP.

The McCain-Palin ticket is the nadir of this process, the logical end result of 30 years of abandoning principle for the sake of power. A steady drift towards endless glorification of war - to the point that being 'anti-war' is actually considered unpatriotic and we are actually having debates over whether torture is acceptable - and proud ignorance.

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"I'm not talking McCain, Hagel, Snowe, or Lugar..." Seriously? McCain's become a bitter partisan hack. Hagel's retired. Snowe did her best to gut healthcare /financial reform. And Lugar's been so quiet, I forgot he's in the senate. I guess it proves the point of your post with a slight amendment - there's not ONE honorable active republican

Today is October 19, 2010--four years since this post was written--and there Republicans are 10 times crazier, the country is about to send a whole bunch of air rifle guys to Washington, and everyone's buying ladders.

I think we're missing an issue. This isn't a question of: "Will it ever shoot something down?" I'm sure with brilliant people and tons of money, it will manage to do that. The better question is: is the missle threat worth that much money?

First, let's examine the threat: Has anyone ever tried to launch a missle at the US? Why? because a missle is a very complicated and expensive way to damage a country. It takes a lot of sophistication. So we can assume we're looking at very good/funded organizations, or states.

Consider the Cold War for the issue of states: specifically, M.A.D. Mutually Assured Destruction. We are by far the most powerful military force on Earth. No one doubts it. We are also critical to the global economy. So if there is ANYONE rational ANYWHERE NEAR the top of whatever state we're afraid of, they won't go there. Trade would be screwed, and they'd be dead quite quickly.

That leaves us with true nutjobs. True crazies are going to try real hard on this, that's true. BUT: cost effectiveness of our strategy then becomes an issue. We could spend WAY less to simply bring the CIA back to the level of competency they were at 20-30 years ago. With more agents on the ground, talking to people in places we're afraid of, we would have a better chance of finding out about such a missile, at a fraction of the cost.And that's just one alternative strategy. (for info on that concept, read "See No Evil").

I bring up that alternative strategy to introduce a new element to the discussion: Is this the cost effective way to approach our fear of a missile attack on the US?And furthermore, if we find a way to spend half as much at roughly the same effect, what could we do with that money that needs doing? That's something that rational, thick rimmed glasses republicans should be asking.

Thank you. That's all I've been saying for years now. When did Republican stop meaning "Smaller government, less taxes" (ok, that would be Reagan, but you know what I mean) and start meaning "Blow everybody up and tell you all how to run your lives"It's very irratating.

Hell, I just miss the days when the worst thing the president did was get a blowjob in the Oval Office. Instead, we're stuck with a schmuck who lied to his entire country, and when his lie was found out, he just kinda shrugged his shoulders and said "yeah, so?"

Thanks, Vastine. I also like hanging out with like-minded bloggers, such as yourself. Yes, imagine, I spend time with inspiring and rejuvenating bloggers, and it ends up rubbing off on me!bullet stickers

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Hopefully this will all start to swing the other way when neither party can find a candidate willing to stand up there on TV and tell the American People that (s)he believes the world is 8k years old! Or I could be shocked again. I mean I never imagined we would put in command of nuclear (newk-yew-ler) weapons someone who can't even pronounce them! But guess what? cheap nfl football jerseys

Thank you. That's all I've been saying for years now. When did Republican stop meaning "Smaller government, less taxes" (ok, that would be Reagan, but you know what I mean) and start meaning "Blow everybody up and tell you all how to run your lives" It's very irratating.

They were the grown-ups. They were the realists. Sure they were a bummer, maaaaan, but on the way to La Revolution you need somebody to remember where you parked the car. I was never one (nor a Democrat, LOL Elo BoostCheap LOL Elo Boost

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The Repubs have turned out to be those asshole LARPers everyone avoided.

You know, the kids who based their existence in dragons and fairies?

ALL of my my want to be "Renaissance Festival" related pals from high school are bat shit Republicans now. All of them. Some are even popping 12 kids out on state aid while calling for medicare recipient's heads.

What we have in the House now are a bunch of Wal-Mart Rambo style LARPers.

Great article until it got sidetracked with the discussion of BMD. You are correct that we're not building the system to fight terrorists but then the actual point of BMD systems is completely missed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-21#DF-21D_.28CSS-5_Mod-4.29_Anti-ship_ballistic_missile